The present invention relates generally truck bedliners and particularly to thermoformed thermoplastic bedliners having structure which engages with cargo items for load restraint.
Although long used in agricultural and commercial applications, pick-up trucks with open cargo beds have also become increasingly popular as personal and family vehicles. The commercial vehicle owner, although concerned with performance and cost effectiveness of the vehicle, often considers the vehicle as a traveling company advertisement or symbol. A neat and well-maintained vehicle is more likely to favorably impress customers. Owners of personal vehicles, while concerned with functionality and efficiency, are also concerned with pride of ownership, personal image, and outward appearances. In addition, the automotive enthusiast desires to maintain his vehicle in as close to a"like new" condition as possible.
Truck bedliners of plastic or rubber are commonly employed to protect the painted metal surfaces of a pick-up truck cargo bed. These truck bedliners are available in a wide variety of configurations to suit the wide variety of available trucks. Bedliners protect the cargo bed from scratching and denting as well as paint fading from exposure to sunlight and elements. One-piece thermoformed thermoplastic truck bedliners provide a cost-effective means of protecting the truck cargo bed.
During acceleration and cornering, however, cargo may slide out of position in the truck bed, sometimes colliding with other cargo or the bed wall. Both the cargo and the bedliner may suffer damage due to collisions.
By thermoforming bedliners of materials with a high coefficient of friction, or by applying high coefficient of friction coatings to the formed bedliner, cargo slippage within the bedliner can generally be reduced. Nevertheless, there is a limit to the forces that can be resisted by friction alone within a truck bed.
Several devices have been devised to restrain cargo within the bed while retaining the easy loading feature of a low-friction bed surface. Some bedliners are adapted to receive segments of high coefficient of friction material to provide grip zones on the bed floor. By engaging high friction segments to low friction floor ribs, these bedliners create a grip zone above the low-friction bed surface. When cargo is loaded onto the grip zone region, the cargo can withstand greater accelerations without sliding out of position in the bed.
Other bedliners have sidewall pockets or ribs which are adapted to receive load restraint members which extend longitudinally or transversely across the bed. The members essentially divide the bed into smaller compartments within which the cargo is restrained. The movement of slipping cargo is stopped by the presence of the restraint member.
Another method of reducing slippage is to install storage compartments into the truck bed. Although storage compartments effectively reduce slippage, they also reduce the amount of truck bed area available for placement of large cargo items.
What is needed is a bedliner which provides a reliable cargo restraint during transit, while still permitting relatively unimpeded utilization of the full cargo area.